King Hazza - I would not disagree with in your response to me. Sure those cities could be better, just as Sydney or Melbourne could be more livable.. but then the challenge is to make our cities livable at higher population densities, rather than try to hold back the tide of population growth.

Actually Squeers economic prosperity does not require growth of a workforce- merely sustained high levels of output, purchase and consumption of whatever we can produce and export- which is being covered increasingly by technology. Our vulnerability to global markets speaks for itself in the US recession- which is very little, even despite Labor being in charge at the time.

Cudmudgeon- I definitely hear you and agree. But would insist that cities should never exceed so many million people or km2 in size;
Sydney is simply a failure down to its most basic design- too many people side-by-side and too few business/trading centers dispersed over an area just ensures crowding and gridlock; Either way we would look at it, we would need to balance removal of traffic jams (by shrinking the width of each suburb into a smaller geologically separate town and interconnecting them via autobahns/rail) against the need to offset the human detriments of crowding by dispersing the population outwards over a larger area;
And the only way to achieve both is simply to encourage more people already living in existing cities to relocate to other cities (or create new ones interstate) that are inviting enough to vacate Sydney for- and try to redraw the space they left with something more livable and functional, hoping there is enough space left over to do it right)

Earlier colinsett suggested that people would do well to get on to www.environment.gov.au/sustainability/population/consultation/submissions.html where there are a huge number of submissions that are directly relevant to this discussion. I entirely agree with that suggestion. Colinsett suggested submissions by the Australian Water Association and also by Johnstone Ecological Society are worth a read. I urge commenters on OLO to read some of the submissions because they are generally thoughtful and full attempts to grapple with what is crucially important matter. I have to confess that I was responsible for the first draft of the Johnstone Ecological Society's submission. However pro population growthers can find plenty of soul companions in submissions by local Councils, development bodies, mining and exploration companies, Business councils, assorted Chambers of Trade et al.
In addition to the AWA and JES submissions I would suggest, as a small sample of views opposing big population growth in Australia, the following: Doctors for the Environment Australia, Kelvin Thomson MP. the West of Elgar Residents Association and (for an excellent discussion of problems in SE Queensland), Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland Bayside Branch.
Specially for Cheryl, who sees people like me (anti pops as she calls us), as 'way to the Right', I commend a pro big growth submission that will gladden her heart. It is by the Citizens Electoral Council.

King Hazza,
There’s nothing in your post that contradicts anything I said, though neither does it take anything I said into account.

Eyejaw (and Colinset presumably),
Thanks for directing me back to the submissions link and I’ve “skimmed” a few, including, and more extensively, the Johnstone Ecological Society's submission.
I respect the passionate feelings that went into composing the document, and which remain ‘embalmed’ within it (in bold), but while I also sympathise and feel just as affronted on behalf of this fragile continent as the document’s authors, the grim news is I fear that such considerations, of sustainability, will receive no regard. Economic considerations shall not be gainsaid and growth shall be pursued with all the unreasoning vigour of holy writ.
In fairness to the prosecutors of globalisation, laissez faire is the only equitable procedure in a fundamentalist world of competitive markets, where all qualitative considerations are reduced to the quanta of economic realism. The great thing about such a system is it relegates “irrationalities” (ethics etc.) and even questions of viability and sustainability to the collateral considerations category, and thus already sidelined, economic growth being the raison d’etra and, quite simply, non-negotiable.
I would be delighted if someone would disabuse me of this gloomy prospect.

Eyejaw,

Your Johnstone Ecological Society was submission was excellent, especially on p. 2 where you confront the cornucopian optimists with reality and lay out Australia's problems with poor, thin soils, low and variable water supplies, and flat land with very high evaporation rates, making water storage difficult or impossible.

Donkeygod,

World grain production per person peaked in 1984, and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization food price index is at its highest level ever.

http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/wfs-home/foodpricesindex/en/

Global population is still growing at about 80 million a year, at a lower growth rate than in the past, but from a larger base. Because of demographic momentum, it can take up to 70 years after replacement level fertility has been attained for a population to stop growing. China's population is still growing, even with the one child policy, which was only intended to last for 30 years. They have relaxed some aspects of it, but it is still in place. Even with the current global population, it would take the resources of 3 Earths to give everyone a modest Western European standard of living. See the Global Footprint Network or this graph from New Scientist

http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/archive/2624/26243101.jpg

The left hand axis indicates ranking of countries and groups of countries on the UN Human Development Index.

Squeers,

Globalisation was stopped before in Western countries, after World War I, essentially because the various elites were afraid of the guillotine. This resulted in more equality, higher wages and better working conditions for ordinary people. This graph shows the share of national income going to the top 1% since 1900 in several countries. Note the Great Compression in the middle of the 20th century.

http://clubtroppo.com.au/2006/08/24/policy-and-perhaps-culture-matter-for-income-distribution/

Even before the war, significant tensions and labour unrest were brewing. In the US, there were pitched battles between strikers and federal troops or what were effectively private armies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_civil_unrest_in_the_United_States

World War I shut off international trade and mass migration, giving many people in the US, especially black people, decent pay and working conditions for the first time.

After the war, US and European elites were badly frightened by what was happening in Russia, but the US elite decided to revert to business as usual. Violent labour unrest returned with a vengeance, and there were bloody riots between black people and the migrants who were displacing them from their jobs as mass migration was resumed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_St._Louis_Riot

Some of those "hardworking immigrants" from Europe were violent anarchists or communists, and delighted to share their ideology with the locals. There were a number of serious anarchist bombings, and the anarchists also sent letter bombs to individual politicians and prominent businessmen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1919_United_States_anarchist_bombings

The elite began caving in in the early 1920s, abolishing mass migration and imposing tariffs on international trade.